


the policy of truth

by sourpastels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, POV Second Person, deanstudies, it's all about repression and performance baybee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29523504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourpastels/pseuds/sourpastels
Summary: a study of the lies dean is told, the lies he tells, and a final truth.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	the policy of truth

**Author's Note:**

> this is short a and experimental (for me) fic and for some reason it is the first thing i'm throwing into the void as a reignited spn fan hi

The first lie is your mother, though you will not learn this until much later.

Your father weaves you a tale, one of domestic bliss and apple pie and what was meant to be a home. A beautiful woman in a white nightgown would have given you all of that, if only a monster hadn’t taken her away.

You mourn her. You miss her. You hate her. You love her. She is all you didn’t have and had to be and couldn’t be. 

The façade starts to crack when you’re twenty-nine, and a man that is not a man but a celestial body trapped in stolen skin sends you to learn how you came to be. 

Your mother corners you outside a diner, white nightgown replaced with leather, and you start to question what your father told you. 

(The man who is not a man starts to question his father too.)

You try to keep the story your father wove alive, but then you are 37 and there is a woman in the street staring back at you. 

The meatloaf is store-bought.

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

The next lie is part your father and part yourself. 

Revenge is the mission, the reason to live, the only thing you should strive for with your too-young hands wrapped around a gun. 

You are a soldier. An avenger. A protector. Not a good enough protector. A perfect son. A blunt instrument. The echo of your mother. The echo of your father. A big brother. A mother. A father. You have a father who loves you. You have a commander who controls you. You have a god and all you can do is follow his orders because what are you without them. You have a brother who loves you. A brother who leaves. A brother who dies for you. A brother who doesn’t look for you when you die.

You will spend the rest of your life trying to untangle these contradictions, and sometimes you still don’t know what is true. 

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

This lie comes from forces even you did not believe in once. You never thought that because there are demons there must be angels (not since the woman who told you they are watching over you burned on the ceiling). You could accept a devil but not a god. 

The heavenly body that is supposed to represent all things good tells you you are a tool, a sword, a prop of divine intervention in a war you never expected. 

This is not the lie. You have always been a weapon. 

But it is a lie that it’s your only choice. 

(A man who is not a man learns this from you.)

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

Maybe that is why the lies from the man who is not a man (who in your mind is now _cas_ — a friend, the best you’ve ever had, family because family don't end with blood, _cas_ ) hurt the most. 

A ring of holy fire separates you from him, and it burns you though you are not close enough to touch the flame. 

You ask. He finally answers. The truth in the face of all your defences (c’mon, it’s _cas_.)

In the moment your fury is righteous (the righteous man broke the first seal in hell)([the righteous man breaks, breaks, breaks) (they tell you the righteous man’s creator does not break, but that is a lie too, he broke much sooner, but he was not a righteous man.)

Cas walks into the water, betrayal mixes with grief.

(You make up in the end. it was both so hard and so easy.)

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

You are not a hypocrite (well, you are, but you tell yourself you are not, that it’s different when it’s you.) You lie as much as you are lied to. You have fake FBI badges in your car and your dad's old leather jacket in your closet and being vulnerable scares you to death. You lie to yourself and you lie to strangers and you lie to your brother and you lie to Cas. 

Lies run in the family. 

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

Your life is a lie. Every moment is written by an uncaring author god who thinks all the pain you and your family have been through is nothing but his entertainment.

Well...almost every moment. 

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

Sometimes things sound like lies yet they are not. 

He tells you “You're the most caring man on earth.”

He tells you “You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know.”

He tells you “I love you.” 

In the moment you don’t know how to react. This is _Cas_ , telling you all the things you thought you’d never hear, (all the things you secretly wished to hear.)

And to him, they are the truth. A liar looks at a liar and cries, vulnerable, honest, _in love_. 

(Love you don’t deserve.)

(Though...perhaps _that’s_ the lie.)

Before you can say anything, he is taken, absorbed in stygian black that you already know will haunt your nightmares for a long time. 

You have no one to lie for, so you cry as your phone rings and rings, world ending around you and inside you. 

Truth is worse than lies when it takes something from you. You wish he ( _Cas_ ) had kept lying, if it meant he could stay. 

In this moment, you allow yourself one private moment of honesty. 

The honesty you were too shocked to speak when you needed to. 

_You love him._


End file.
